The power of Obama's hand

It’s the Obama Touch — the squeeze on the biceps, the pat on the shoulder or the tap on the back that signals the displeasure of the commander in chief. Let others turn on the deep freeze or lose their cool when they’re annoyed. Obama prefers to deal with problems by taking them in hand — literally.

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Just ask Vice President Joe Biden, who made a joke about Chief Justice John Roberts flubbing the oath of office last week and immediately felt his boss’s disapproval, in the form of Obama’s fingers on his back.

“[Obama] was castigating him. There’s no other way to put it,” says Joe Navarro, a former FBI special agent specializing in nonverbal communication. “Biden got it immediately,” he adds. “It looked like a little, subtle touch, but you could immediately see that Vice President Biden was contrite after that.”

In Biden’s case, Obama’s touch was itself a message, but in other cases, the Touch serves to underscore a spoken point — as reporters both on and off the campaign trail have learned.

During his visit to the White House press room last week, Obama responded to a Politico reporter’s unwanted question with a verbal rebuke — and a series of shoulder pats so emphatic as to be audible.

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“We use touch to create effective communications, so if you’re not getting the message through my words, this is how we can establish better communication, with that touch,” explains Navarro.

Although Obama was clearly annoyed, Navarro adds, the gesture was conciliatory, rather than aggressive. “You didn’t see a closed fist or a pointed finger,” he says. “It was what we call full palmartouch.”

A scribe who personally received a hand-on-shoulder talking-to from the then-senator on the campaign trail says that the message was mixed. He says he knew Obama was irritated but that the Touch felt “confidential” and that he also had the sense that Obama was trying to connect with him.

The contact, he said, “seemed to have a twofold purpose — to express his annoyance and also to convince you that you were wrong.”

Another member of the press, who witnessed a similar moment with a colleague during the campaign, recalls thinking the gesture seemed intended to regain control over the conversation — friendly on the surface but also a little intimidating.

This dual experience is no accident; in sensitive situations, Obama typically uses touch to control and console simultaneously. An extreme example of this arose in June of last year, when Obama was approached in Philadelphia by an aggressive fan who wanted a photo with the candidate.